KEY POINTS:
A rampage after a football match, verbal abuse hurled at police officers as they moved to make an arrest after the suspect tried to hit a steward; a post-party reveller staggering around drunk and disorderly before breaking into a parked car, screaming, and throwing the car's back-seat contents
out of one of its windows; a drunken "jape" in which windscreen wipers were ripped from parked cars.
The latest instances of the hoodies or chavs - the Asbo generation - misbehaving after more than a few too many? A wild night on an inner-city council estate, perhaps? Simply more grist to the mill of those who bemoan the breakdown of society and the boorish behaviour of its poorer members?
Not a bit of it. They are, instead, all examples of a growing phenomenon identified by police and psychiatrists: the British middle classes behaving badly.
And now comes signs of a backlash that professional watchdogs, including the General Medical Council (GMC) and the Bar Standards Board (BSB), are aiming to stamp out drink, drug and sexual excess, and to step into the private lives of doctors and barristers to do so.
Take the first incident. It concerned not an archetypal football yob on a post-match binge but Dr Simone Lester, a former senior director of NHS Direct and the woman charged with no less grave a task than drawing up guidelines for the public following the radioactive poisoning of the Russian dissident Alexander Litvinenko. She faced a GMC disciplinary hearing last week after becoming involved in an alcohol-fuelled argument with police at Arsenal's Emirates Stadium. She called an officer a "poor peasant" and "worse than Jade Goody".
The second offender was no less a figure than the Bishop of Southwark. The Right Rev Tom Butler is one of the most senior clergymen in the Church of England. But that didn't stop him from raising more than a few parish eyebrows after he was discovered in a bad way in a stranger's car, throwing toys out of the vehicle. Dr Rowan Williams, the Archbishop of Canterbury, announced his own investigation.
And the windscreen wiper stealer was a Scottish lawyer, making his way home after celebrating his mother's 80th birthday. He was dealt with by the courts.
Now the BSB is stepping in to make it clear it will no longer tolerate anti-social conduct while off duty and is preparing to introduce a new offence of "improper behaviour" outside chambers.
The GMC too said it would act if it was confronted with a case of a doctor behaving badly outside of his or her role at the surgery or hospital, as it did with Dr Lester.
So just what is going on among the privileged classes?
Clinical psychologist Oliver James identifies a new trend of professionals "behaving in a way that is really very different to the way they ought to behave". He blames a disease that he has termed "affluenza", where the middle classes have reacted to the widening inequalities of wealth by turning nasty.
He offers an example: "It is a relatively new phenomenon and includes examples such as a friend of mine, who went to Winchester and supports Chelsea, engaging in considerable violence as a Chelsea fan."
Drusilla Beyfus, the author of Modern Manners: The Complete Guide to the Etiquette of the 90s, backs the move to hold to account the badly behaving middle classes, often the most vocal in their criticism of similar behaviour in the less privileged sections of society. She says: "People who are accustomed to being looked up to should maintain a certain level of behaviour but standards have slipped across the board."
Drunken conduct by barristers, working under intense pressure to win cases, is a closely kept secret within the profession. The move is an attempt to stop it from impacting on the wider public.
And a recent spate of lurid headlines alleging bizarre behaviour has worried the Bar Standards Board, the profession's self-regulatory body. One barrister was recently caught secretly filming up women's skirts in supermarkets. Another was taken to court after he was alleged to have exposed himself to bridesmaids at a wedding, and brawled with a fellow guest. The barrister was finally acquitted but not before the headline "Barrister got willy out" appeared in The Sun.
The Bar Standards Board's decision to change its disciplinary procedures will send a strong signal to barristers to treat not only their clients properly but also to watch what they say and do after taking their wigs off. Solicitors, too, are coming under increasing scrutiny. Nor is bad behaviour in the legal profession confined to advocates.
Last year, the public was enthralled by the story of two judges who are alleged to have made sex videos, one of which purported to show the woman snorting cocaine in Thailand. Their cleaner, who had been the lover of one of the judges, was accused of blackmailing them over the home-made sex videos. As the lurid details of the love triangle emerged, the court was told how the male judge liked to call the Brazilian cleaner "real chilli hot stuff".
Rob Behrens, the Bar Standards Board complaints commissioner who drew up the proposals that regulate barristers' behaviour, said the new charge would enable complaints about poor conduct outside chambers to be dealt with swiftly. Either way, Mr James fears that attempts to crack down on the badly behaving middle classes are doomed to failure. He warned: "We will just be scratching at the surface of the structural and cultural problems that have caused them to behave like this."
- Independent
